Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Mao to Picasso -- Brian Brake Photography Exhibition

Published on Nov 6, 2013

Koru Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the successful outcome of negotiationswith the estate of Brian Brake and we now can offer the only remaining portfolio ofvintage photographs, outside of public museums and galleries. This collection of iconicimages features Brake's Chinese/Hong Kong series and Picasso at the Bullfight seriesphotographed in the 1950s. These photographs will be exhibited in Brian Brake's firstsolo exhibition in Hong Kong in decades, titled 'Mao to Picasso -- Brian BrakePhotography'.

Brian Brake is generally regarded as New Zealand's most successful internationalphotographer. But he also worked in motion pictures -- as both director andcinematographer -- and was the first ever New Zealander to be nominated for anAcademy Award. Brian Brake's career spanned over 40 years from the 1940s to the1980s and during that period created a magnificent catalogue of photographs from bothNew Zealand and around the world.

Brake initially made his name as an international photojournalist, photographing formagazines such as Life, National Geographic and Paris Match. In the early years of theCold War, with help from Magnum founder Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brake became oneof few foreign photographers Chinese authorities permitted to take photos. He spentthree months in China in 1957, and later was the only independent Westernphotographer allowed to document the 10th anniversary of the Communist republic in1959.

Brake also had a fascination for documenting everyday life and captured many black and white photos of ordinary people going about their lives in and around Beijing. AtholMcCredie, Photography Curator at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewabelieved that Brake's insight into China in the 1950s was unique, not only for a Westernphotographer but for the Chinese too. Few Chinese photographers at the timedocumented life away from the sanctioned official view of it. The spectacle of officialTiananmen Square parades was what magazine editors went for. McCrediecommented that American audiences would have been thrilled at seeing the photos --feeling a mixture of fear, awe and fascination.

Gael Newton wrote "...Brake had photographed Hong Kong in 1958 for the Frenchmagazine Jours de France and in 1961 for National Geographic and the images hetook then had a strong emphasis on crowded street scenes and people. He was wellaware of the changes brought about by modernization and the construction projects ofthe 1960s and 1970s which swept away some of the historical quarters. Brake handledthis modernity with ease but also retained a sense of life of the people..."

"The China photographs proposed for this exhibition will be serious, thoughtful, factual,and at times so beautifully visual that the viewer can forget that his magnificently organized pictures are showing a regimented society." -- Eva Arnold. In addition, theHong Kong proposed photographs offer the viewer captivating glimpses of Hong Kong's past, its people, places and culture. These images all captured through the verydiscerning eyes of an astute artist who many commentators believe was very muchahead of his time.

Also Included in this exhibition will be one of two of Brake's most widely recognizedand iconic photo essays, 'Picasso at a Bullfight'. This was in fact not an officialassignment from Magnum, and only came about due to the co-incidence that Brakewas holidaying with friends in the south of France when he learned Picasso was attending a bullfight in a town close by. Once Brake arrived at the bullfight, there was arelatively small crowd of no more than 500, and Brake was able to gain close up shotsof Picasso and his entourage, with little interference from other photographers or crowds.

As the story is told by Brake, the iconic image of Claude, Picasso's son, putting hisindex finger into Picasso's mouth during a climactic moment in the fight, was the lastimage taken on his last roll of film. The contact sheets do in fact show this was the lastphoto taken on his second roll of film, but out of four rolls shot that day, and this imagewent on to be published in Life, Stern, The Times and Paris Match, the leadingmagazines of the day.

These much sought-after and rare vintage photographs included in this exhibition havebeen sourced directly from the estate of Brian Brake and are all either signed or embossed by the artist.